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+ | ====== Die Wurzeln nähren: Aufsätze über buddhistische Ethik ====== | ||
+ | <span hide>Die Wurzeln nähren</ | ||
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+ | Summary: | ||
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+ | ===== Contents ===== | ||
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+ | * [[#path|The Path of Understanding]] | ||
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+ | ====== Nourishing the Roots ====== | ||
+ | <div chapter> | ||
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+ | The course of spiritual training taught by the Buddha is a double process of self-transformation and self-transcendence issuing in complete emancipation from suffering. The process of self-transformation involves the elimination of unwholesome mental dispositions and their replacement by pure dispositions conducing to the benefit of oneself and others; the process of self-transcendence focuses on the abandoning of egocentric notions by seeing with direct insight the essenceless nature of the bodily and mental processes we normally take to be " | ||
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+ | Because the unwholesome tendencies and selfish clinging spring from seeds buried deep in the bottom-most strata of the mind, to eradicate these sources of affliction and nurture the growth of the liberating vision of reality the Buddha presents his teaching in the form of a gradual training. Buddhist discipline involves gradual practice and gradual attainment. It does not burst into completeness at a stroke, but like a tree or any other living organism, it unfolds organically, | ||
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+ | The vigour of the spiritual life, like the vigour of a tree, depends upon healthy roots. Just as a tree with weak and shallow roots cannot flourish but will grow up stunted, withered and barren, so a spiritual life devoid of strong roots will also have a stunted growth incapable of bearing fruit. To attempt to scale the higher stages of the path it is essential at the outset to nourish the proper roots of the path; otherwise the result will be frustration, | ||
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+ | To say that //sila// is the precondition for success, however, does not mean, as is too often believed in conservative Buddhist circles, that one cannot begin to meditate until one's //sila// is perfect. Such a stipulation would make it almost impossible to start meditation, since it is the mindfulness, | ||
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+ | Only when we secure our cultivation upon the foundation of blameless principles of right action can the inward endeavor of meditation prosper and issue in success. With true principles of conduct as the base, the roots of virtue will give birth to the trunk of concentration, | ||
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+ | The Pali word //sila// originally meant simply conduct. But in the context of the Buddhist spiritual training the term is used to signify only a specific kind of conduct, i.e., good conduct, and by an extension of meaning, the type of character for which such conduct stands, i.e., good character. Hence //sila// means both moral conduct, a body of habits governed by moral principles, and moral virtue, the interior quality the regular observance of these principles is intended to produce. | ||
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+ | Both shades of meaning are essential to understand the place of //sila// in the spectrum of Buddhist discipline. //Sila// in the former sense consists in the non-transgression through body or speech of the basic precepts regulating the moral life. It is moral discipline in deed and word, beginning as the inhibition of immoral impulses seeking an outlet through body and speech, and developing into the habitual conformation to the principles of righteous conduct. But the full range of //sila// is not exhausted by mere outward behavioral control, for the term has in addition a deeper, more psychological significance. In this second sense //sila// is moral purity, the inner purification of character which results from a life consistently moulded upon moral principles. This aspect of //sila// places the stress on the subjective, motivational side of action. It looks not towards the outward act itself, but towards the rectitude of mind from which good conduct springs. | ||
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+ | Upon inspection //sila// thus reveals itself to be a two- dimensional quality: it contains an external dimension consisting in purification of conduct, and an internal dimension consisting in purification of character. However, in the Teaching of the Buddha, these two dimensions of experience, the internal and the external, are not torn apart and consigned to separate, self-sufficient domains. They are recognized, rather, to be two facets of a single whole, complementary poles of a unified field which mirror one another, implicate one another, and penetrate one another with their own respective potentialities of influence. Actions performed by body and speech are not, from the Buddhist standpoint, so many detachable appendages of a distinct spiritual essence, but concrete revelations of the states of mind which stand behind them as their activating source. And states of mind, in turn, do not remain closed up in a purely mental isolation, but spill forth according to the play of circumstances from the fountain of consciousness where they arise, through the channels of body, speech and thought, out into the world of inter-personally significant events. From the action we can infer the state of mind, and from the state of mind we can predict the probable course of action. The relationship between the two is as integral as that between a musical score and its orchestrated performance on the concert stage. | ||
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+ | Because of this mutual dependence of the two domains, moral conduct and purity of character lock up with one another in a subtle and complex interrelationship. The fulfillment of the purification of virtue requires that both aspects of //sila// be realized: on the one side, behavior of body and speech must be brought into accord with the moral ideal; on the other, the mental disposition must be cleansed of its corruptions until it is impeccably pure. The former without the latter is insufficient; | ||
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+ | According to the Buddhist principle of conditionality, | ||
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+ | The Buddha rests his teaching upon the thesis that with the right method we have the capacity to change and transform ourselves. We are not doomed to be for ever burdened by the weight of accumulated tendencies, but through our own effort we can cast off all these tendencies and attain a condition of complete purity and freedom. When given the proper means in the context of right understanding, | ||
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+ | The first step on this path is the purification of character, and the efficient means for the restructuring of character the Buddha provides in the observance of //sila// as a set of precepts regulating bodily and verbal conduct. //Sila// as moral discipline, in other words, becomes the means for inducing //sila// as moral virtue. The effectiveness of this measure stems from the reciprocal interlocking of the internal and external spheres of experience already referred to. Because the inner and outer domains are mutually implicated, the one can become the means for producing deep and lasting changes in the other. Just as a state of mind expresses itself outwardly in an action — in deed or speech — so too the avoidance and performance of certain actions can recoil upon the mind and alter the basic disposition of the mental life. If mental states dominated by greed and hatred can engender deeds of killing, stealing, lying, etc., then the abstinence on principle from killing, stealing and lying can engender a mental disposition towards kindliness, contentment, | ||
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+ | The medium which bridges the two dimensions of //sila,// facilitating the translation of outward behavior into inner purity, is volition or //cetana.// Volition is a mental factor common to every occasion of experience, a universal concomitant of every act of consciousness. It is the factor which makes experience teleological, | ||
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+ | Volition determines an action as being of a definite sort, and thence imparts to action its moral significance. But since volition is invariably present in every state of consciousness, | ||
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+ | When volition is driven by the unwholesome roots of greed, hatred and delusion, it breaks out through the doors of the body and speech in the form of evil deeds — as killing, stealing and fornication, | ||
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+ | A process of factor substitution, | ||
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+ | Though volition or //cetana// is the primary instrument of change, the will in itself is indeterminate, | ||
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+ | To guide the will in its aspiration for the good, the Buddha has prescribed in definite and lucid terms the factors of moral training which must be fulfilled to safeguard progress along the path to enlightenment. These factors are comprised in the three items which make up the aggregate of virtue in the Noble Eightfold Path: namely, right speech, right action, and right livelihood. Right speech is the avoidance of all harmful forms of speech — the abstinence from falsehood, slander, harsh speech and idle chatter. The speech of the aspirant must be constantly truthful, conducive to harmony, gentle and meaningful. Right action applies a brake upon unwholesome bodily action, by prescribing abstinence from the destruction of life, from stealing, and from sexual misconduct; the latter means incelibacy in the case of monks, and adultery and other illicit relations in the case of householders. The behavior of the aspirant must always be compassionate, | ||
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+ | The training factors embedded in these components of the Noble Eightfold Path simultaneously inhibit the base, ignoble and destructive impulses of the human mind and promote the performance of whatever is noble and pure. Though worded negatively, in terms of the types of conduct they are intended to shut out, they are positive in effect, for when adopted as guidelines to action, they stimulate the growth of healthy mental attitudes which come to expression as beneficient courses of conduct. Intensively, | ||
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+ | From this it will be seen that from the Buddhist point of view formulated rules of conduct are not superfluous accessories to a good will, but necessary guidelines to right action. They are an essential part of the training, and when implemented by the force of volition, become a fundamental means to purification. Especially in the context of the practice of meditation, the training precepts prevent the eruption of defiled actions destructive to the purpose of the meditative discipline. By following carefully the prescribed rules of conduct, we can rest assured that we are avoiding at least the coarser expressions of greed, hatred and delusion, and that we will not have to face the obstacle of guilt, anxiety and restlessness that comes in the trail of regular moral transgressions. | ||
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+ | If we return to our earlier comparison of the Buddhist discipline to a tree, and take virtue to be the roots, then the principles of right conduct become the soil in which the roots grow. Just as the soil contains the nutritive essences required for the tree to sprout and flourish, so do the precepts contain the nutriment of purity and virtue required for the growth of the spiritual life. The precepts embody the natural conduct of the arahant or perfected saint. For the arahant, his conduct flows outward as the spontaneous expression of his innate purity. By his very nature, all his deeds are flawless, free from blemish. He cannot follow any course of action motivated by desire, ill will, delusion or fear — not through any forced conformity to rules, but by the very law of his being. | ||
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+ | The worldling, however, is not immune from the possibility of immoral conduct. To the contrary, because the unwholesome roots remain firmly planted in the makeup of his mind, he is constantly prone to the temptation to moral transgression. He is liable to kill, steal, commit adultery, lie, drink, etc.; and in the absence of any sound moral code prohibiting such actions, he will often succumb to these liabilities. Hence the necessity of providing him with a set of ethical principles built upon the pillars of wisdom and compassion, by which he can regulate his actions and conform to the natural, spontaneous behavior of the Liberated One. | ||
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+ | A precept is, therefore, from the Buddhist perspective much more than a prohibition imposed upon conduct from without. Each precept is a tangible expression of a corresponding attitude of mind, a principle which clothes in the form of concrete action a beam of the light of inward purity. The precepts render visible the invisible state of purification. They make it accessible to us by refracting it through the media of body and speech into specific rules of conduct we can apply as guides to action when we find ourselves in the diverse situations they are designed to cover. By bringing our conduct into harmony with the precepts, we can nourish the root of our spiritual endeavors, our virtue. And when virtue is made secure, the succeeding stages of the path unfold spontaneously through the law of the spiritual life, culminating at the crest in the perfection of knowledge and the serene azure of deliverance. As the Master says: | ||
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+ | < | ||
+ | For one who is virtuous, bhikkhus, endowed with virtue, no deliberate volition need be exerted: "Let freedom from remorse arise in me." This is the natural law, bhikkhus, that freedom from remorse arises in one who is virtuous, endowed with virtue | ||
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+ | For one who is free from remorse, no deliberate volition need be exerted: "Let gladness arise in me." This is the natural law, bhikkhus, that gladness arises in one free from remorse. | ||
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+ | For one who is gladdened, no deliberate volition need be exerted: "Let rapture arise in me." This is the natural law, bhikkhus, that rapture arises in one who is gladdened. | ||
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+ | For one filled with rapture, no deliberate volition need be exerted: "Let my body become tranquil." | ||
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+ | For one tranquil in body, no deliberate volition need be exerted: "May I experience bliss." | ||
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+ | For one who is blissful, no deliberate volition need be exerted: "Let my mind become concentrated." | ||
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+ | For one who is concentrated, | ||
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+ | For one knowing and seeing things as they really are, no deliberate volition need be exerted: "May I become disenchanted and dispassionate." | ||
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+ | For one who has become disenchanted and dispassionate, | ||
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+ | Thus, bhikkhus, one stage flows into the succeeding stage, one stage comes to fulfillment in the succeeding stage, for crossing over from the hither shore to the beyond. | ||
+ | < | ||
+ | </ | ||
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+ | ====== Mind and the Animate Order ====== | ||
+ | <div chapter> | ||
+ | <span anchor # | ||
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+ | As we cast our gaze out upon the landscape of animate nature, it does not take long before our attention is struck by the tremendous diversity of forms the animate order displays. The folds of nature' | ||
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+ | The human world, again, is itself far from homogeneous. The family of man breaks down into a great diversity of types — into people black, white, brown, yellow and red, dividing still further, according to their fortunes and faculties, into the long-lived and the short-lived, | ||
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+ | To the thinker who would dig below the surface presentations and discover the reasons for the manifest phenomena, the question naturally arises why life exhibits itself in such variegated apparel. Reflection upon this question has given birth to a multitude of schools of thought, religious and philosophical, | ||
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+ | Materialism, | ||
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+ | It is not our present purpose here to examine at length these two rival doctrines. Let it suffice to note that both, in different ways, throw into jeopardy the postulate of a progressive spiritual evolution of beings by withholding, | ||
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+ | Theism withholds this condition by its basic postulate of an omnipotent deity directing the entire field of nature from above. If all of nature runs its course in obedience to divine command, then the individual will, which belongs to the natural order, must be subject to the same divine supervision as the rest of animate nature. The autonomy of the individual will and its direct impact on the sentient sphere are excluded, and with them also goes the thesis of a genuine long-term spiritual growth, to which they are essential. | ||
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+ | Materialism likewise shuts out the notion of a progressive spiritual evolution of beings, but more simply and directly, by explicitly denying the basic presupposition of such a notion. The will's claim to freedom is here rejected, its autonomy usurped by the irresistible pressure of the determinative influences at its base. Consciousness becomes a mere by-product of material processes; the individual life-stream leaves no impact on any continuous current of experience enduring beyond the grave. Both conscious action and evolution in the biotic sphere proceed in the grip of the same play of cosmic forces — blind, brute, and insentient in their fundamental mode of operation. | ||
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+ | Buddhism also offers an explanation for the diversity of the sentient order, an explanation which bridges the gap between volition and the diversity and thus opens up the prospect for long-term spiritual development. According to Buddhism, the explanation for the variegation of sentient beings — in their kinds, faculties, and fortunes — lies in their kamma, that is, their volitional action. Beings are, in the words of the Buddha, "heirs of their action." | ||
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+ | It is, therefore, not God or chance in the Buddhist picture, but the differentiation in volitional action, functioning across the succession of lives, that accounts for the differentiation in the animate order, and the differentiation in action again that divides beings into the high and low, the happy and the miserable, the gifted and the deprived. As the Buddha declares: " | ||
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+ | Since the effective determinant of destiny is kamma, and kamma is essentially volition, this means that the operative factor in the formation of future becoming is lodged in the individual will. The will, from the Buddhist perspective, | ||
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+ | Differentiation in the biological sphere is thus preceded and paralleled by a set of transformations in the mental sphere, which finds in animate nature the channel for actualizing its own potentialities throughout the series of successive becomings comprising the individual continuum. Through the exercise of our will, therefore, we build for ourselves our own world independent of coercion by extrinsic forces and mould the destiny that awaits us in time to come, whether for happiness or misery, for bondage or liberation. | ||
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+ | For the spiritual aspirant, however, it is not sufficient merely to understand the theoretical ground for the differentiation of living beings. For us it is of the utmost importance to know what we can do to further our own progress along the scale of spiritual evolution — to advance to higher levels of attainment during the course of our earthly life, to secure a rebirth conducive to spiritual growth in the life to come, and ultimately to transcend this repetitive cycle of birth and death and attain Nibbana, the supreme and irreversible deliverance. | ||
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+ | The answer to this problem begins with the fact that kamma divides itself, according to its moral quality, into two types — the unwholesome // | ||
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+ | On ultimate analysis, life is a self-regenerating sequence of occasions of experience, comprising occasions of action and occasions of reception. Action is volition, and volition inevitably involves decision or choice — a selection from the welter of possibilities open to the will of that alternative most, conformable to the individual' | ||
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+ | Thence progress or decline depends entirely upon our choice, and not upon any external agency whether conceived in spiritualistic or materialistic garb. Through our fleeting, momentary decisions, accumulated over long periods, we model our fortune and chisel out of the unshaped block of futurity the destiny that will befall us in the span of time to come. Each call for a decision may be depicted as a ladder, one end leading upward to unknown heights, and the other extending downward into forbidding depths, while our successive decisions may be taken as the steps that lead us up or down the ladder' | ||
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+ | In sum, then, it is our kamma that precipitates our destiny, for it is kamma that brings about manifestation of all the destinations //(gati)// or realms of sentient existence, and kamma ultimately that fashions the entire variegated landscape of sentient existence itself, according to the ethical tone of its associated moral roots. As the Exalted One explains, speaking not through speculation but through his own direct penetration of the paths leading to all destinations: | ||
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+ | < | ||
+ | It is not celestial beings //(deva),// or humans, or any other creatures belonging to happy forms of existence, that appear through action //(kamma)// born of greed, born of hate, born of delusion; it is rather beings of the hells, of the animal kingdom, of the ghostly realm, or any other others of miserable form of existence that make their appearance through action born of greed, hate and delusion.. | ||
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+ | It is not creatures of the hells, of the animal kingdom, of the ghostly realm, or any others of a miserable form of existence, that appear through action born of non-greed, born of non-hate, born of non-delusion; | ||
+ | < | ||
+ | </ | ||
+ | </ | ||
+ | |||
+ | ====== Merit and Spiritual Growth ====== | ||
+ | <div chapter> | ||
+ | <span anchor # | ||
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+ | The performance of deeds of merit forms one of the most essential elements of Buddhist practice. Its various modes provide in their totality a compendium of applied Buddhism, showing Buddhism not as a system of ideas but as a complete way of life. Buddhist popular belief has often emphasized merit as a productive source of worldly blessings — of health, wealth, long life, beauty and friends. As a result of this emphasis, meritorious activity has come to be conceived rather in terms of a financial investment, as a religious business venture yielding returns to the satisfaction of the agent' | ||
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+ | The accumulation of a "stock of merit" is a primary requisite for acquiring all the fruits of the Buddhist religious life, from a pleasant abiding here and now to a favorable rebirth in the life to come, from the initial stages of meditative progress to the realization of the states of sanctity that come as the fruits of entering upon the noble path. The highest fruition of merit is identical with the culmination of the Buddhist holy life itself — that is, emancipation from the shackles of samsaric existence and the realization of Nibbana, the unconditioned state beyond the insubstantial phenomena of the world. The mere piling up of merit, to be sure, is not in itself sufficient to guarantee the attainment of this goal. Merit is only one requisite, and it must be balanced by its counterpart to secure the breakthrough from bondage to final freedom. The counterpart of merit is knowledge // | ||
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+ | Merit and knowledge together constitute the two sets of equipment the spiritual aspirant requires in the quest for deliverance, | ||
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+ | Either set of equipment, functioning in isolation, is insufficient to the attainment of the goal; either pursued alone leads to a deviant, one-sided development that departs from the straight path to deliverance taught by the Buddha. Merit without knowledge produces pleasant fruit and a blissful rebirth, but cannot issue in the transcendence of the mundane order and entrance upon the supramundane path. And knowledge without the factors of merit deteriorates into dry intellectualism, | ||
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+ | But while merit and knowledge thus occupy coordinate positions, it is merit that claims priority from the standpoint of spiritual dynamics. The reason is that works of merit come first in the process of inner growth. If knowledge be the flower that gives birth to the fruit of liberation, and faith // | ||
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+ | The reason for this particular sequential structure is closely linked to the Buddhist conception of noetic realization. From the Buddhist standpoint the comprehension of spiritual truth is not a matter of mere intellectual cogitation but of existential actualization. That is, it is a matter of grasping with our whole being the truth towards which we aspire, and of inwardly appropriating that truth in a manner so total and complete that our being becomes transformed into a very reflex and effusion of the truth upon which we stand. The understanding of truth in the context of the spiritual life, in other words, is no affair of accumulating bits and pieces of information publicly accessible and subjectively indifferent; | ||
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+ | In order to grasp truth in this totalistic manner at any particular stage of spiritual development, | ||
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+ | Ultimate truth, in the Buddha' | ||
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+ | The achievement of such a purification of our inward being is the work of merit. Merit scours the mind of the coarser defilements, | ||
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+ | The classical Buddhist commentators underscore this preparatory purgative function of merit when they define merit // | ||
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+ | This discovery cautions us against misconstruing the Buddhist stress on the practice of merit as a call for blind subjection to rules and rites. The primary instrument behind any act of merit, from the Buddhist point of view, is the mind. The deed itself in its physical or vocal dimension serves mainly as an expression of a corresponding state of consciousness, | ||
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+ | Mechanical conformity to moral rules, or the performance of religious duties through unquestioning obedience to established forms, far from serving as a means to salvation, in the Buddhist outlook actually constitute obstacles. They are instances of " | ||
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+ | The object of the purifying process of merit is again the mind, only here considered not from the standpoint of its immediacy, as a creative source of action, but from the standpoint of its duration, as a continuum // | ||
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+ | This sequential current of mentation has been going on, according to Buddhism, without discernible beginning. Driven forward from life to life by ignorance and craving, it appears now in one mode of manifestation, | ||
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+ | When merit is said to "purge and purify the mental continuum," | ||
+ | |||
+ | When the mind is allowed to flow according to its own momentum, without restraint or control, like a turbulent river it casts up to the surface — i.e., to the level of active consciousness — the store of pollutants it harbors at its base: lust, hatred, delusion, and their derivative defilements. If the defilements are then given further scope to grow by indulging them, they will wither the potential for good, darken the beam of awareness, and strangle the faculty of wisdom until it is reduced to a mere vestige. The performance of meritorious deeds serves as a means of resisting the upsurge of defiling states, of replacing them with their wholesome opposites, and of thereby purifying the mental continuum to an extent sufficient to supply wisdom with the storage of strength it requires in the work of abolishing the defilements. | ||
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+ | The effectiveness of merit in purifying the mental continuum stems from the concordance of a number of psychological laws. These laws, which can only be indicated briefly here, together function as the silent groundwork for the efficacy of the entire corpus of Buddhist spiritual practice. | ||
+ | |||
+ | The first is the law that only one state of consciousness can occur at a time; though seemingly trivial, this law leads to important consequences when taken in conjunction with the rest. The second holds that states of consciousness with mutually opposed ethical qualities cannot coexist. The third stipulates that all the factors of consciousness — feeling, perception, volition and the remaining states included in the " | ||
+ | |||
+ | A kammically active state of consciousness is either entirely wholesome, or entirely unwholesome; | ||
+ | |||
+ | Thus the performance of deeds of merit always induces a momentary purification, | ||
+ | |||
+ | The fourth law holds that repetition confers strength. Just as the exercise of a particular muscle can transform that muscle from a frail, ineffectual strip of flesh into a dynamo of power and strength, so the repeated exercise of individual mental qualities can remodel them from sleeping soldiers into invincible warriors in the spiritual quest. | ||
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+ | Repetition is the key to the entire process of self-transformation which constitutes the essence of the spiritual life. It is the very grounding that makes self-transformation possible. By force of repetition the fragile, tender shoots of the pure and wholesome qualities — faith, energy, mindfulness, | ||
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+ | If repetition provides the key to self-transformation, | ||
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+ | Every occasion of volition modifies the mental life in some way and to some degree, however slight, so that the overall character of an individual at any one time stands as a reflex and revelation of the volitions accumulated in the continuum. | ||
+ | |||
+ | Since the will propels the entire current of mental life in its own direction, it is the will which must be strengthened by force of repetition. The restructuring of mental life can only take place through the reformation of the will by leading it unto wholesome channels. The effective channel for re-orientation of the will is the practice of merit. | ||
+ | |||
+ | When the will is directed towards the cultivation of merit, it will spontaneously hamper the stream of defilements and bolster the company of noble qualities in the storage of the continuum. Under its gentle tutelage the factors of purity will awaken from their dormant condition and take their place as regular propensities in the personality. A will devoted to the practice of charity will generate kindness and compassion; a will devoted to the observance of the precepts will generate harmlessness, | ||
+ | </ | ||
+ | |||
+ | ====== The Path of Understanding ====== | ||
+ | <div chapter> | ||
+ | <span anchor # | ||
+ | |||
+ | Prince Siddhattha renounced the life of the palace and entered the forest as a hermit seeking a solution to the problem of suffering. Six years after entering he came out a Buddha, ready to show others the path he had found so that they too could work out their deliverance. It was the experience of being bound to the perishable and unsatisfying that gave the impetus to the Buddha' | ||
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+ | The Buddha envisages suffering in its full range and essence rather than in its mere manifest forms. It is not just physical or mental pain that he means by suffering, but the recurrent revolution of the wheel of becoming, with its spokes of birth, aging and death. Taking our immersion in a condition intrinsically inadequate as the starting point of his doctrine, he devotes the remainder to showing the way out of this condition. The solution the Buddha offers to the problem of suffering draws its cogency from the strict logic of causality. Suffering is neither an accident nor an imposition from without, but a contingent phenomenon arising through the force of conditions. It hangs upon a specific set of supports, and is therefore susceptible to treatment by tackling the genetic structure which maintains it in being. By removing the conditions out of which it arises, it is possible to bring the whole phenomenon of suffering to an end. | ||
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+ | In order to reach the state of emancipation, | ||
+ | |||
+ | According to the Buddha' | ||
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+ | Among the various misconceptions produced by ignorance, the most basic is the apprehension of phenomena through the category of substantial existence. Phenomena are not isolated units locked up in themselves, but participants in an interconnected field of events. Their being derives from the entire system of relata to which they belong, not from some immutable core of identity intrinsic to themselves. Thence they are devoid of an abiding essence; their mode of being is insubstantial, | ||
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+ | The sphere where this illusion is most immediately felt is the sphere where it is most accessible to us — namely, our own experience. The experiential domain is reflectively divisible into two sectors — a cognizing or subjective sector made up of consciousness and its adjuncts, and a cognized or objective sector made up of the cognitive data. Though the two sectors are interlocking and mutually dependent, through the operation of ignorance they are conceptually bifurcated and reduced to an adventitious subject-object confrontation. On the one side the cognizing sector is split off from the experiential complex and conceived as a subject distinct from the cognitive act itself; the objective sector in turn congeals into a world of external things pointing to the subject as its field of action and concern. Consciousness awakens to itself as a persisting ego standing up against the world as an " | ||
+ | |||
+ | This cognitive error with its consequent solidification of the ego is the source of the afflictions // | ||
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+ | The bid for self-confirmation makes its impact felt on both the emotional and intellectual fronts. The dominion of the ego in the emotional sphere appears most conspicuously in the weight of the unwholesome roots — greed, hatred and delusion — as determinants of conduct. Because the ego is essentially a vacuum, the illusion of egohood generates a nagging sense of insufficiency. We feel oppressed by an aching incompleteness, | ||
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+ | On the intellectual front the ego-illusion engenders a move by reason to establish on logical grounds the existence of a substantial self. The idea "I am" is a spontaneous notion born of ignorance, the basic unawareness of the egoless nature of phenomena. By accepting this idea at its face value, as pointing to a real " | ||
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+ | The theories which emerge invariably fall into one or another of the two metaphysical extremes — either eternalism when we assume the self to enjoy eternal existence after death, or annihilationism, | ||
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+ | Because the pivot of our cognitive adherences and their emotional ramifications is the notion of an ego, a powerful current of psychic energy comes to be invested in our interpretive schemes. And because the notion of an ego is in actuality groundless, the product of a fundamental misconception, | ||
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+ | The result of our clinging is eventual suffering. Yet this suffering which arises from the breakdown of our egocentric attempts at dominance and manipulation is not entirely negative in value. It contains a tremendous positive value, a vast potential, for by shattering our presumptions it serves to awaken our basic intelligence and set us on the quest for liberation. It forces us to discover the ultimate futility of our drive to structure the world from the standpoint of the ego, and makes us recognize the need to acquire a new perspective free from the compulsive patterns which keep us tied to suffering. | ||
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+ | Since the most fundamental factor in the bondage of the ego is ignorance, to reach this new perspective ignorance must be eliminated. To eliminate ignorance it is not sufficient merely to observe rules of conduct, to generate faith, devotion and virtue, or even to develop a calm and concentrated mind. All these are requisites to be sure, essential and powerful aids along the path, but even in unison they are not enough. Something more is required, some other element that alone can ensure the complete severing of the conditional nexus sustaining the round of samsaric suffering. That something more is // | ||
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+ | The path to liberation is essentially a path of understanding. Its core is the knowledge and vision of things as they really are: "It is for one who knows and sees that the destruction of the defilements takes place, not for one who does not know and does not see." The objective domain where understanding is to be aroused is our own experience. Since our distorted interpretations of our experience provide the food which nourishes the process of ego, it is here, in experience, that the ego-illusion must be dispelled. Our own experience is, of all things, that which is " | ||
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+ | The correct understanding of experience takes place in the context of meditation. It requires the development of insight // | ||
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+ | The focal method of the practice of meditation is reflective awareness, a bending back of the beam of awareness upon itself in order to illuminate the true characteristics of existence implicated in each occasion of cognition. The path of understanding unfolds in three successive stages called "the three full understandings." | ||
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+ | The second stage of understanding is the "full understanding of scrutinization" | ||
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+ | When the second stage is fully mature, it gives way gradually to the third type of comprehension, | ||
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+ | To walk the path of understanding is to begin to see through the deceptions which have held our imaginations captive through the long stretch of beginningless time. It is to outgrow our passions and prejudices, and to cast off the mask of false identities we are accustomed to assume, the vast array of identities that constitute our wandering in samsaric existence. The path is not an easy one, but calls for great effort and personal integrity. Its reward lies in the happiness of growing freedom which accompanies each courageous step, and the ultimate emancipation which lies at the end. | ||
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+ | ====== About the Author ====== | ||
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+ | Bhikkhu Bodhi is a Buddhist monk of American nationality, | ||
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+ | Seit ihrer Gründung im Jahre 1958 hat die BPS eine große Auswahl an Büchern und Broschüren über eine weite Themenpalette veröffentlicht. Unter den Veröffentlichungen finden sich sowohl sorgfältige, | ||
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